Guilty of Pregnancy
Bryce Covert
The Nation
Discrimination against pregnant employees is the clearest sign we have that the American workplace still operates under the archaic idea that men go to work and women remain in the home.
July 19th, 2015 § Comments Off on Discrimination against pregnant employees is the clearest sign we have that the American workplace still operates under the archaic idea that men go to work and women remain in the home. § permalink
The five justices who voted to allow this practice—described in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent as “the chemical equivalent of being burned alive”—did so on the stunning legal theory that because some method of execution must be constitutional, there must be some constitutional means of carrying it out, and thus the use of the drug midazolam as part of the lethal injection cocktail must be constitutional.
July 14th, 2015 § Comments Off on The five justices who voted to allow this practice—described in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent as “the chemical equivalent of being burned alive”—did so on the stunning legal theory that because some method of execution must be constitutional, there must be some constitutional means of carrying it out, and thus the use of the drug midazolam as part of the lethal injection cocktail must be constitutional. § permalink
Dalia Lithwick
Fates worse than Death, Slate
Putting on the ritz
May 26th, 2015 § Comments Off on Putting on the ritz § permalink
Alexsandra Domanovic
Test
May 26th, 2015 § Comments Off on Test § permalink
Most of the people in power are men.
February 22nd, 2015 § Comments Off on Most of the people in power are men. § permalink
Emily Bazelon on Silicon Valley
It was precisely this ontological question—property or persons?—that the war was fought over.
April 23rd, 2014 § Comments Off on It was precisely this ontological question—property or persons?—that the war was fought over. § permalink
Hayes, Christopher
The New Abolitionism
The Nation
April 22, 2014
“Why do only girls get their periods? Is it because the blood of boys is purer?”
February 27th, 2014 § Comments Off on “Why do only girls get their periods? Is it because the blood of boys is purer?” § permalink
For Teenage Girls, Video Takes Fear Out of a Shunned Topic
Kavitha Rao
New York Times
February 27, 2014
Trayvon Martin’s lifeless body was put on trial for having the audacity to exist and be black.
July 13th, 2013 § Comments Off on Trayvon Martin’s lifeless body was put on trial for having the audacity to exist and be black. § permalink
Smith, Mychal Denzel
“0ur Lives on the Line”
Nation, August 5/12, 2013
She had thought of them as “big,” because one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that “fat” in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgment like “stupid” or “bastard,” and not a mere description like “short” or “tall.”
March 13th, 2013 § Comments Off on She had thought of them as “big,” because one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that “fat” in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgment like “stupid” or “bastard,” and not a mere description like “short” or “tall.” § permalink
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Don’t try to fool me or fool yourself. Is that really what you saw? What do you think about it? Aren’t you a thinking being? Or do you think you are all body?
February 5th, 2013 § Comments Off on Don’t try to fool me or fool yourself. Is that really what you saw? What do you think about it? Aren’t you a thinking being? Or do you think you are all body? § permalink
Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, transl. Kristin Ross (Palo Alto, Calif. and London: Stanford Univ. Press, 1991)
(*Rancière quotes J. Jacotot)
Breaking the world of intelligence into two, By installing the division between the groping animal and the learned little man, Between common sense and science.
January 27th, 2013 § Comments Off on Breaking the world of intelligence into two, By installing the division between the groping animal and the learned little man, Between common sense and science. § permalink
Ranciere
The Ignorant Schoolmaster
His success fit into a certain pervasive narrative of cancer – that cancer is something you “defeat,” something you “beat,” less a disease than a test of character.
January 21st, 2013 § Comments Off on His success fit into a certain pervasive narrative of cancer – that cancer is something you “defeat,” something you “beat,” less a disease than a test of character. § permalink
We enabled Lance
Samuel Freedman
Also running through 19th century women’s novels and poetry were out-of-control characters, “maddened doubles [who] functioned as asocial surrogates for [more] docile [female] selves.”
January 17th, 2013 § Comments Off on Also running through 19th century women’s novels and poetry were out-of-control characters, “maddened doubles [who] functioned as asocial surrogates for [more] docile [female] selves.” § permalink
Maureen Corrigan on The Madeoman in the Attic
NPR
It was his hands that wrote the script, his body that set up shots, blocked his actors, and so forth.
July 6th, 2011 § Comments Off on It was his hands that wrote the script, his body that set up shots, blocked his actors, and so forth. § permalink
“Inside the Box: Notes From Within the European Artistic Research Debate”
Michael Baers, e-flux
About As the Academy Turns, Tion Ang’s telenovela-style video about the contemporary art academy.
Bodily processes and states can be inspected by external observations.
July 1st, 2011 § Comments Off on Bodily processes and states can be inspected by external observations. § permalink
“Ghosts in Machine” entry in Wikipedia.
More: “Thus a person’s bodily life is as much a public affair as are the lives of animals. But minds do not exist in space, nor are their operation subject to mechanical laws. The workings of the mind are not witnessable by other observers; its career is private. A person therefore lives through two collateral histories: one consisting of what happens to and with the body (public); the other consisting of what happens to and in the mind (private). However, the problem with this theory is that in order for this to happen there would have to be a division in reality where the mind is not governed by mechanical laws. This creates a dichotomy as reality can not be divided and nothing can exist outside of reality.”
The subject-object problem, a longstanding philosophical issue, is concerned with the analysis of human experience, and of what within experience is “subjective” and what is “objective”.
April 27th, 2011 § Comments Off on The subject-object problem, a longstanding philosophical issue, is concerned with the analysis of human experience, and of what within experience is “subjective” and what is “objective”. § permalink
Wikipedia
“The Subject-Object Problem”
The problem with this is that, again, the law is not settled about whether our genetic makeup is more the property of the excavating mind of the scientist or the individual property of a particularly identified body.
September 27th, 2010 § Comments Off on The problem with this is that, again, the law is not settled about whether our genetic makeup is more the property of the excavating mind of the scientist or the individual property of a particularly identified body. § permalink
“Freshmen Specimen”
Patricia Williams, article in The Nation, September 27th, 2010.
This article questions the ethics of DNA sampling.
The field of human-animal experiments is dubbed “chimera” research, named for the she-monster in Greek mythology that has a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail… Maybe the problem is not so much chimeras in science as chimeras in politics.
September 25th, 2010 § Comments Off on The field of human-animal experiments is dubbed “chimera” research, named for the she-monster in Greek mythology that has a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail… Maybe the problem is not so much chimeras in science as chimeras in politics. § permalink
“Slouching Toward Washington”
Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, Sept 25, 2010
“Me embodying the position that I’m analyzing is the very thing that makes it so powerful.” Of course, the more successful the embodiment, the less obvious the analytic part is. And since Gaga herself literally embodies the norms that she claims to be putting pressure on (she’s pretty, she’s thin, she’s well-proportioned), the message, even when it comes through, is not exactly stable. It’s easy to construe Gaga as suggesting that frank self-objectification is a form of real power.
June 20th, 2010 § Comments Off on “Me embodying the position that I’m analyzing is the very thing that makes it so powerful.” Of course, the more successful the embodiment, the less obvious the analytic part is. And since Gaga herself literally embodies the norms that she claims to be putting pressure on (she’s pretty, she’s thin, she’s well-proportioned), the message, even when it comes through, is not exactly stable. It’s easy to construe Gaga as suggesting that frank self-objectification is a form of real power. § permalink
“Lady Power”
Nancy Bauer in The New York Times, June 20, 2010
The man who drools at women’s body parts is punished, but then again so is everyone else in the place.
June 20th, 2010 § Comments Off on The man who drools at women’s body parts is punished, but then again so is everyone else in the place. § permalink
“Lady Power”
Nancy Bauer in The New York Times, June 20, 2010
We know that it is now possible to successfully transplant a hand and that the brain can reconstitute its bodily schema to include foreign members.
January 1st, 2008 § Comments Off on We know that it is now possible to successfully transplant a hand and that the brain can reconstitute its bodily schema to include foreign members. § permalink
“What Should We Do with Our Brain?” Catherine Malabou, Fordham University Press, New York, 2008
The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body
January 12th, 2007 § Comments Off on The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body § permalink
“Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters”
Martin, Courtney E., Free Press, 2007
Time for Another Body Count in Iraq
January 12th, 2006 § Comments Off on Time for Another Body Count in Iraq § permalink
“Time for Another Body Count in Iraq”
Rampton, Sheldon, PR World, 2006
The mind exists because there is a body to furnish it with contents.
August 3rd, 2003 § Comments Off on The mind exists because there is a body to furnish it with contents. § permalink
Antonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, Harcourt Brace, 2003.
The real victory was what this period did to the psyche of the black man. And the greatness of this period was that we armed ourselves with dignity and self-respect. The greatness of this period was that we straightened our backs up. And a man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.
August 16th, 1965 § Comments Off on The real victory was what this period did to the psyche of the black man. And the greatness of this period was that we armed ourselves with dignity and self-respect. The greatness of this period was that we straightened our backs up. And a man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent. § permalink
Martin Luther King, 1965, when giving President Johnson the pen to sign the Voting Rights Act.
“The body’s power is increased or diminished. Emotions are bodily changes plus ideas about these changes which can help or hurt a human.” It happens when the bodily changes we experience are caused primarily by external forces or by a mix of external and internal forces. Spinoza argued that it was much better for a person, himself or herself, to be the only adequate cause of bodily changes, and to act based on an adequate understanding of causes-and-effects with ideas of these changes logically related to each other and to reality; when this happens the person is active, and Spinoza describes the ideas as adequate.
January 1st, 1883 § Comments Off on “The body’s power is increased or diminished. Emotions are bodily changes plus ideas about these changes which can help or hurt a human.” It happens when the bodily changes we experience are caused primarily by external forces or by a mix of external and internal forces. Spinoza argued that it was much better for a person, himself or herself, to be the only adequate cause of bodily changes, and to act based on an adequate understanding of causes-and-effects with ideas of these changes logically related to each other and to reality; when this happens the person is active, and Spinoza describes the ideas as adequate. § permalink
Wikipedia entry on the passions. First two sentences are from Spinoza’s Definitions. On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions, 1883.